The Morning After
by ll301
Summary: Set after the events of "Power Players". Jamie said he would stay the night after Eddie's first kill. But how do the partners react after the moment is over? Do they regret opening up to each other? Oneshot/missing scene.


She wakes up suddenly, with the feeling that something is wrong. The feeling intensifies when she tries to move her arm and feels it pinned by something. She feels her heart rate rise - she's been tense lately, and not sleeping well. A glance over at the digital clock on the cable box reveals that it's a little after seven in the morning. That's the latest she's slept since - _right_. The events of the night before come back to her in a rush. She's spent the night on the couch, which is why she can see the cable box. The dried tears she can feel on her face and the rumpled yesterday's clothes? She's finally achieved the release of emotion that she'd been trying to expedite with sad movies and liquor. The warm body pressing against her, pinning her arm against the couch – well, that's her partner, the man who she's been trying her best not to love pretty much since the night she met him on the steps outside the precinct. The man who, as she's now recalling, showed up at her apartment last night and with just a few clichéd but surprisingly wise pieces of advice - really just with the empathy he'd exuded as he'd stood there with his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket - had so easily drawn from her the tears she'd been trying fruitlessly to find all day. _Shit_. She remembers him sitting next to her on the couch and telling her she was a good guy, and drawing her into his arms and agreeing to stay. She hadn't really expected him to - she'd expected him to wait until she calmed down and then explain for the millionth time why whatever-it-was was a bad idea. ("For a lot of reasons," she'd echoed preemptively in her head.) But here it is, 7:14 AM on their day off, and Eddie is pinned beneath her partner's arm on her sofa.

She's really lying half on top of him. Their positions from last night had carried on into sleep, and she's lying sort of on his chest as he's reclined with his head on the back of the couch and his feet on the floor. _That can't have been a comfortable way for him to spend the night._ Now she's feeling guilty on top of the other feeling deep in her gut that they've just crossed a line. She lies there, frozen, for a minute, not wanting to move and wake him and have the conversation they're basically bound to have after spending the night in each other's arms. But soon she realizes this can only end in him waking up with her awkwardly lying on top of him, and she eases ever so slowly out of his arms, placing the one that had held her back onto his chest. He sighs and his eyelids flutter, making Eddie grimace, but eventually his breaths settle back into the steady rhythm of sleep. Having done this, Eddie pads across the living room floor in her socked feet to her bedroom, where she grabs a towel and a change of clothes from her dresser and crosses the hall to the bathroom. She closes the door softly behind her and locks it, then lets out a great sigh and sits down on the rim of the tub.

 _What the hell is she supposed to do now?_ She wishes she could walk out, as though this were a one-night-stand gone wrong, but the downside of falling asleep in her own apartment is that she can't just leave. Instead, she decides to wait him out. She needs a shower anyway.

* * *

Eddie takes her time in the shower, conditioning her hair and shaving her legs, before stepping out and drying off slowly. She's definitely killed at least half an hour by the time she finishes raking a brush through her wet hair. Her hope is that he's woken up while she showered, and decided to do what she hadn't been able to and take off. She steps into the hallway in the t-shirt and yoga pants she'd grabbed from her bedroom, toweling off her hair a final time. Just before she reaches the spot where the hallway opens into her kitchen, she detects the gurgle of her coffee maker. She stops short and curses. She hasn't started coffee, but it seems someone has. Someone who is planning to stay to drink that coffee, probably, and make awkward small talk while she tries not to remember how embarrassingly vulnerable she'd been, or how safe she'd felt in his arms, last night.

Just as she's ruminating on the situation she's put herself in, he notices her in the doorway.

"Hey, where've you been?"

She sighs with a chuckle, stepping further into the kitchen. "Avoiding the inevitable, I guess." She immediately curses her choice of words, as that particular phrasing has to bring back memories of their alcohol-fueled kiss outside her building last year.

The smirk on his face makes it clear that he doesn't miss it. He doesn't say anything, though, and instead just grabs two mugs from the cupboard over the stove. She watches him moving in her space with such ease, and there's a part of her that finds it distinctly appealing. She slides over to the counter and sits, watching as he pours two cups of coffee and pushes one over to her. "Thanks."

He nods and grabs his own mug, sitting down across from her. They sit in silence for a minute as he passes her the milk carton and she passes him the sugar. Eddie stares into her cup, studying the swirls of the milk as it diffuses into the dark brew. She can feel his gaze probing her face, probably searching to make sure she's not going to have a breakdown again, she thinks, already regretting the weakness she'd shown him last night.

She hears him inhale and braces herself, knowing he's about to speak and make her stop ignoring the elephant in the room. "So...how are you?"

She raises her eyes to meet his. He looks hesitant, like he doesn't know how to approach this. She doesn't blame him. If he'd ever shed his tough-cop veneer so thoroughly in the way that she had last night, she'd be thrown too. She forces a smile. "I'm okay, Jamie. Really. Sorry about last night, that was...well, it's not gonna happen again."

Jamie furrows his brow. She can tell she's worried him. "Eddie, I get it. I've been there. You got nothing to apologize for."

She sighs. "That guy had a kid. A three year old daughter." She knows she shouldn't have looked him up, but she'd felt a weird compulsion to understand the life she'd ended.

Jamie leans forward in his chair and looks her in the eye. "He drew on you, Eddie. You had no other choice."

She flashes back to him saying the same thing, pretty much word for word, last night and is suddenly overcome by a feeling of burdensomeness. "I know. You're right. I'm sorry." As she continues, she hears her voice teetering on the edge of hysteria. "God, I'm dumping all this on you, this isn't _your_ problem. I'm the one who shot the guy. I don't even know why this is bothering me so much, I mean, I shot a drug dealer. Hell of a dad he must've been. Besides, I bet you didn't cry on your partner's shoulder after _your_ shoot, it's just me being crazy. This is - I'm sorry." She hears apologies spilling out of her and realizes she's living up to every societal stereotype of the overly apologetic female, but can't seem to stop them.

"Eddie."

Hearing him speak her name jerks her out of her tirade. She focuses on his face. He looks taken aback. She closes her eyes in shame as she remembers just what had happened to the man who'd been his partner at the time of the shoot. _Shit_. "I'm sorry."

He scrubs a hand over his face. "Stop. Stop apologizing. This isn't your fault."

She bites her lip and nods. "I know."

Jamie sits back in his chair and inhales as though preparing to speak. He looks up, over Eddie's head, seemingly lost in thought. "My third year on the job I was partnered with Vinny Cruz. He was...a hothead. Reckless-"

At another time Eddie would have teased, "so, the opposite of you," but now she stays silent. Eddie's sort of frozen, in fact, because they don't talk about this. She knows Jamie lost a partner before her - everyone in her academy class had talked about the shooting at the Bitterman houses - but she can't ever recall him bringing it up to her with such purpose. Aside from referencing collars he made or scenes he worked with his old partner, the name rarely comes up. And Jamie never talks about his shoot itself - not that she doesn't understand that. But he is now, and she's already morbidly intrigued by this rare insight into her intensely private partner's feelings.

"Vinny and I, we didn't get along for a while. He thought I was too uptight, I thought he was too impulsive. We didn't exactly talk about stuff like this. Not at that point, at least." He clears his throat. "One day we got a call about a suspicious male with a gun in Washington Square Park, so we split up to look for the guy. I found him, but Vinny wasn't on the air. He looked testy, so I approached him. But when he saw me he pulled a gun. I ordered him to drop it. He pointed it at a bunch of little kids. So I shot him."

His face is stoic, but his voice betrays him as he continues. "Then you know I found out later he was suicidal. Guy wanted to die and conned me into doing it for him."

He shifts his eyes to meet hers. "He had kids too."

Eddie's staring at him, biting down hard on her lip. Jamie suddenly snorts. "I don't know why I'm telling you all this depressing shit when I'm trying to make you feel better."

She chuckles a little. "That actually helped." It does help with the guilt, hearing him open up. It makes her feel like she's not the only one getting something out of the conversation.

He grins at her. "What I'm trying to say is, I know how it feels. And I handled it - not well, after my shoot. Everyone was trying to help, and I just kept pushing them away. And that wasn't good for me, in the long run, I think. So - I don't mind you talking to me, Eddie. I'm glad you did. And you always can."

She feels herself smiling like an idiot and tries to rein in her expression to avoid showing him how much of a thrill he's just given her. "Thanks, Jamie. And - and I hope you know the same goes to you. I mean, you have the whole family to talk to, but...if you ever need someone outside the family, sometimes I get it too."

His smile widens. "I know. Wish _this_ wasn't something you had to get."

She snorts. "Me too."

His face goes serious. "You're okay?"

She can tell he's really asking, which she appreciates. Even after all the angst she's unloaded on him, he's still open to listening. She nods. "I'm okay. And Jamie, thank you."

He nods. "Anytime."

She watches his face as he raises his eyebrows, like he's been struck with an idea. "What?"

He quirks an eyebrow at her. "You hungry?"

She grins. "I could eat."

Her grin is mirrored on his face. "Bagels?"

"Hell yeah."

He slings an arm around her shoulder as they exit the apartment together.

* * *

I hope you've enjoyed the story! This is the first time I've published on this site, so apologies for any errors in formatting or otherwise. I'm new to this, so constructive criticism is welcomed! I got the idea for this after rewatching the episode and wishing that we got to see how they dealt with the awkwardness after the heat of the moment was over, so I decided to write a sort of missing scene/oneshot to fill it in for myself. If you liked it (or if you didn't like it!) I'd really appreciate a review!


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